Vanilla Cookie Manager

While there’s nothing you can do to ensure that offers credit ALL the time, you can give yourself a better chance by setting up your browser correctly. One of the recommendations made by experienced users, and some of the sites themselves, is to clear your cookies frequently.

You can do this simply by using a cookie manager. The one I’m going to talk about, Vanilla Cookie Manager, is a Google Chrome extension. it can be used on Windows or Mac computers.

Step 1 – Adding Vanilla to Chrome

1) Search for Vanilla Cookie Manager, or click here to go directly to the extension, in the Chrome Web Store.

2) Then click ADD TO CHROME.

3) Click Add extension.

4) Success.

Step 2 – Getting your settings correct

1) Click on the Vanilla icon in the toolbar. It looks like a half moon.

2) Show Options

3) Then check the box next to “Protect whitelisted cookies”.

Step 3 – Adding sites to your whitelist

Adding sites to your whitelist protects those cookies from deletion. This means that you won’t be logged out of your whitelisted sites when you clear your cookies.

It’s up to you to decide which sites to whitelist. I have all the sites I visit often, including the main survey sites that I use.

1) Go to a site you’d like to whitelist. Then click on the Vanilla icon in the toolbar.

2) Add the site to your whitelist. I almost almost use the second option as that means that the entire domain is protected so other pages on the site won’t have their cookies deleted either. This is particularly useful when it comes to gmail.

3) You can check the sites you’ve added to your whitelist by going to the Options page. In addition, a whitelisted site will have the black Vanilla icon in the toolbar. Sites that have not been whitelisted will show the icon greyed out with a line through it.

Step 4 – Clearing unwanted Cookies

1) Click on the Vanilla icon and Clear Unwanted Cookies.

2) You’ll see how many cookies you removed.

Other

1) The menu doesn’t pop up when I click the Vanilla icon

Sometimes, the menu won’t show correctly. If this happens, just click on the icon again. You may have to click a couple of times for it to load, but it always does eventually.

2) Import a list of sites

I’ve compiled a list of sites that I have added to my whitelist. You can import them to Vanilla if you wish. This will save you going and adding each site on your own. Be aware that I only use a few sites so my list may not cover everything you need.

1) Click on the Vanilla icon —> Show Options —> Scroll down to Diagnostics & Tools.